Page 26 of Mystic Justice (The Other Detective #2)

‘Stay up high,’ I murmured to Loki. ‘Stay discreet.’

‘Me go up. Ninja bird,’ he assured me, taking to the wing.

I grimaced. I couldn’t imagine anything less discreet than my bird trying to pretend to be a ninja. Still, his energy levels seemed better since he’d had the chicken nuggets so maybe he really had been a little low on fuel.

Botany’s doors were open when we arrived. The fire elemental who’d fainted when we first went there, Jane Calder, greeted us automatically then her smile wobbled as she recognised us. ‘There are already two officers here,’ she hissed. ‘You’ll ruin the atmosphere. No one wants cops with their beer.’

‘I do,’ Krieg murmured for my ears alone.

I ignored him and smiled at Jane with faux-friendliness. ‘I can arrest you if you want and that can affect the atmosphere even more.’

She paled and the flames on her head danced like someone had blown on them. She was nervous and didn’t like the idea of being arrested, but not many people did. Being arrested by the Connection had a significant correlation with subsequent death.

She forced a laugh. ‘No, that’s okay.’ Recovering her composure, she said bossily, ‘Go on in, but please question the staff out of sight of the customers.’

‘We’ll question them where we need to,’ I said flatly. ‘Is Merrick in?’

‘Yes.’ She brightened, pleased to have my energy redirected elsewhere. ‘He’s in his office on the mezzanine floor – but he’s in a terrible mood today. Hopefully Betty will help.’ She muttered the last aside under her breath, but I caught it all the same.

She led us into the bar and collared Ruben, the huffy werewolf. ‘Can you take them up to see Gideon?’

He shot her a flat look. ‘You do know I’m the manager here, right?’

‘Deputy manager,’ she said sweetly. ‘And I’m front of house and I’m busy.’ She gestured to the customers waiting to be seated then swept across to deal with them, a welcoming smile on her beautiful face.

‘Follow me,’ Ruben said reluctantly.

‘Did you speak with the two centaurs who were here last night?’ Krieg asked as we followed him.

Ruben sighed. ‘I’ve already spoken to the other Inspectors about this.’

‘Then repeat yourself,’ I bit back.

He rolled his eyes. ‘Yeah, I saw them. The dead one and his friend.’ His empathy knew no bounds. ‘They were in Jane’s section but they were getting rowdy. Samson and I had to go over and ask them to leave.’

‘What time was that?’

‘An hour or so before close? You could see they’d had a skinful – they were swaying as they trotted out.

Some bitch had two-timed them both and they’d bonded over the traumatic experience.

They kept calling her “the skank”. As I said, they were getting loud, calling all women bitches and hos.

’ He shook his head in disgust. ‘You can’t let people spew that shit at the top of their lungs.

A few customers complained so we gave the centaurs the heave-ho. ’

‘Did you get a name for her? The “skank”?’

‘Nah. As I said, they just called her skank.’

‘Okay. Do you remember the other centaur’s name?’ I had both details on the file from McCaffrey, but I wanted to see what Ruben knew.

He shrugged unapologetically. ‘I don’t remember either of their names. The dead guy had been here a few times before. Centaurs don’t tend to be regulars – the place isn’t spacious enough for them – so the dead dude stuck out.’

His callous phrasing irritated me. ‘The dead dude was Joe Bogan,’ I snapped.

‘He was part of the Anglesey herd, and he had a mother and father who will be devastated at losing their son. He was a person, not just a corpse. He had a degree in economics, and he wanted to move to Liverpool to live with his girlfriend. He’d come here several times before.

On this occasion he came up to surprise her and got his heart broken when he found her in bed with centaur number two.

His last twelve hours on this earth were not good ones. ’

My voice was so sharp that Ruben held up his hands in a placatory gesture.

‘You’re right. That’s rough, but I don’t know any of them.

It’s hard to cry a river over a dude you didn’t know.

’ He paused then his glibness faded. ‘It’s different with Moss.

She lit up the room, ya know? Even the customers knew on some level that she was special.

She was going to be somebody, going to sing in stadiums full of fans.

I believed that.’ He shook his head. ‘So fucking unfair.’

‘Joe Bogan was someone else’s Moss,’ I pointed out.

‘I suppose he was. But he wasn’t mine.’

It was hard to argue with that.

We’d reached the top of the stairs to the mezzanine level. Ruben led us past the empty tables to the door at the back and rapped loudly on the oak door. ‘Boss, you got guests.’

‘I’m busy!’ came the grunted reply.

I pushed past Ruben and opened the door impatiently.

‘Then make time,’ I growled as I entered the room.

One of the pot washers, a barely legal witch called Betty, was buck naked and riding her boss with abandon whilst he fed from her neck.

‘Betty,’ I snapped out. ‘You’re done here. Get dressed and get out.’

When I’d interviewed her briefly, the eighteen-year-old had seemed nice, if a little vapid. ‘But I haven’t come yet,’ she protested.

‘That’s what vibrators are for. Out.’

She rolled her eyes and climbed off her boss’s phallus.

Merrick pulled her back and took a long lick at the bite marks on her neck.

Instantly the puncture wounds healed and faded with his healing spit.

Vampyrs could also mesmerise their prey but Betty’s eyes were clear and she was walking without trouble.

She hadn’t been compelled in the slightest.

I averted my eyes so the pair of them could get dressed but kept them in my peripheral vision in case Merrick got any ideas about drawing weapons because of my audacity in interrupting him mid-coitus. When they were dressed I held open the door. ‘Out, Betty.’

She sighed. ‘See you later, Giddy.’ She blew him a kiss and he gave her a brief smile.

When the door closed, I folded my arms. ‘Gideon Merrick, you’ve been a bad boy.’

He grinned. ‘Plenty of people bang their staff. She’s pretty, she’s of age. Most importantly, she’s willing. Very willing. It’s no big deal.’

‘You have a position of power over her. She could allege coercion.’

He snorted. ‘Betty doesn’t know the meaning of the word. It’s one of the things I like about her.’

I glared. ‘When I said you’d been bad, I wasn’t talking about Betty.

’ The moment I’d walked in and seen his face I’d recognised him, despite the fact that his features had now aged.

I shifted my weight onto the balls of my feet and called up my magic, letting it hum through me.

I was ready if he decided to run or fight.

‘You’ve been attacking imps, Mr Merrick, and stealing their tails. ’

He grimaced. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘That.’ He made no move and his eyes flickered over me, no doubt reading my intentions to bring him down if he did. ‘If I may make one little suggestion before you arrest me?’

‘Go on.’

‘Call Lord Volderiss.’

I didn’t want to let down my guard to get my phone out and dial the vampyr Symposium member. Volderiss liked me well enough, he’d take my call and answer my questions, but I didn’t want to take my eyes off the prize. ‘You call him,’ I shot back instead.

The handsome vampyr gave me a small smile. ‘Right you are. No need to get cranky. I’m moving nice and slowly.’ He picked up the receiver of his desk phone, speed dialled Lord Volderiss and put him on loudspeaker without any prompting from me. It was telling that the lord was speed dial number one.

‘Gideon, what do you need?’ Volderiss’s voice cracked out. Again, interesting. First-name basis, and he didn’t ask what Merrick wanted but what he needed.

‘Your immediate presence at Botany would be most helpful,’ Gideon said with faux cheerfulness. ‘I have a rather cranky Inspector Wise on my hands and she has High King Krieg with her.’

‘Krieg? What’s he doing there?’

‘I’ve no idea,’ Gideon said. ‘You can ask him when you’re here. If you dare.’

‘I’m already on the way. Tell Wise to give me ten minutes to get to you and I’ll be there in five. We can get the jump on her if we need to.’

Gideon looked at me ruefully. ‘Ah. To show my good faith to the Inspector, I put this call on speakerphone.’

Volderiss huffed. ‘Next time tell me that at the beginning of a call. Wise, I’ll see you in five minutes.’

‘I look forward to it,’ I drawled. ‘But if you try and get the jump on me, now or ever, I won’t hesitate to make you dust.’

Next to me, Krieg smiled.

The Connection was the police and the Symposium was the government.

The Symposium gave the Connection their orders, and the Connection was supposed to police corruption in the Symposium.

There was no precise separation of powers in the Other and that made it a murky place where only the strong survived and thrived.

At no point could anyone ever consider me weak or I’d be a dead woman walking.

Gideon winced as he hung up the phone. ‘You shouldn’t threaten Lord Volderiss. He doesn’t like it.’

‘He shouldn’t threaten me. I don’t like it.’

‘He didn’t mean to – not directly.’

As Krieg moved closer to take up his preferred place slightly behind and to my left, he pulled out a blade.

To anyone else it would have been a sword but he would probably have called it a dagger.

‘You hired Krieg as your bodyguard?’ Gideon mused.

‘That seems like a good idea, in the circumstances.’

I rose an eyebrow. ‘Which are?’

He smiled again; I didn’t trust anyone who smiled that often. ‘I’ll let Lord Volderiss enlighten you.’

Silence fell. After a beat, I broke it. ‘I don’t need a bodyguard.’

He looked at me. ‘Perhaps not.’

We fell silent again. Gideon slumped back into his leather, big-boss swivel chair that he’d just been being bouncing on with such abandon. ‘Are we going to wait in silence,’ he said. ‘Or…?’

‘Where were you on the night of Moss Hollings’ kidnapping? Tuesday the first of July?’ I asked.

He blinked. ‘We can go back to silence, if you want?’

‘Answer the question.’

He frowned faintly. ‘I thought you were here about the tails?’

‘My visit has more than one purpose.’

‘How like a woman, always multi-tasking,’ he murmured. He thought for a moment. ‘Well, Betty and I were … entertaining ourselves up here until 2am.’

‘And on the night of Moss’s murder? Saturday the fourth?’

‘I took the lovely Betty to the theatre. We watched Blood Brothers and she gave me a wonderful blow-job in the second act – we were in a private box. I do so adore a young woman’s libido.’ He looked at me. ‘Though it’s supposed to be stronger when a woman is your age.’

As Gideon dragged his gaze suggestively down my body Krieg gave a low, threatening rumble. Gideon’s eyebrows shot up. ‘No disrespect intended, Your Excellence,’ he said hastily. ‘I didn’t know she was yours.’

‘I will break your fucking nose,’ I snarled. ‘I am no one’s but my own.’

Volderiss burst in at full vampiric speed and in a beat he was standing next to Gideon with the desk between us. ‘Violence, Inspector Wise? How unlike you.’ His tone was faintly sarcastic.

Although he appeared to be alone, my skin prickled with the uncomfortable sensation that told me I was being watched.

I sent out tendrils of my subterfuge magic and encountered another mind – one I recognised – lurking in the shadows.

I kept that knowledge off my face. ‘I don’t tolerate fools gladly. ’

‘You do not,’ Volderiss agreed. ‘But Gideon is no fool. Far from it, though he plays the jester well. He’s one of our best Red Guard agents. He has been deep under cover for nearly a year now, harvesting ingredients for the Black Coven, ingratiating himself into their good books.’

‘Or bad books, as the case may be,’ Gideon interjected with yet another too-charming smile.

‘We are at a critical stage of the mission and we cannot afford for you to screw this up,’ Volderiss groused. ‘Back off, Inspector Wise. That’s an order, direct from the Symposium.’

Well, fuck.